


Storm Watch

by Sherloqued



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 07:38:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9983180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloqued/pseuds/Sherloqued
Summary: This was originally posted for the Sept/Oct 2010 Picture Prompt challenge.  Picture: kiss





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted for the Sept/Oct 2010 Picture Prompt challenge. Picture: kiss

One of several trips back to New England - Late August/Early September

Jack pressed the remote, turning on the television so he could keep up with the reports tracking the tropical storm that was swirling and gathering energy just off Cape Hatteras, that was threatening to turn into a hurricane and head up the East Coast.  He hoped their flight home, leaving out of Providence, Rhode Island the next day, wouldn’t be cancelled.

"Want to take a walk down to the beach?" Ennis asked. "Dependin’ on how bad they’re predictin’ it’ll get, a’course."  
  
Ennis walked back in from the deck of the blue-shuttered guest house with his cup of coffee after looking skyward, the air noticeably heavy and unusually, tropically humid for the area at this time of year, the sound of the wind picking up slightly, seabirds instinctively moving inland.  They had been coming back to the same place for a few years now.   Keeping an eye on the weather was second nature to Ennis.   He didn't need the TV to tell him.

"Sure." Jack said, eyes still on the television.  
  
"Hope our flight home tomorrow ain't gonna be affected by this weather."

"I don’t care if we have to stay a day or two more, d’you." Ennis said, coming over to Jack and sitting next to him on the couch, putting his arm around him and kissing him.

Jack just smiled.   "Well, you're awful laid-back about the idea of missin' our flight."  
  
"Let’s just wait a bit and see what they say, see if it's gonna turn into a big blow or not.  They’ll close the beaches and lock the storm gates if it’s gonna get bad, on account of there's always a couple damn fools who don’t pay attention to the warnin’s and end up gettin' swept away."  
  
Ennis winked at Jack, and Jack just gave him a look.

"Might not be able to get down there till the next mornin’ sometime then, if it is bad." Ennis continued, undiscouraged.   "Mornin’s ‘r nice.  Maybe we can grab somethin' to eat at the Surfside too.   Shouldn't be much of a wait for a table now."    The place did a land-office business during the summer months, but would be quieter now, in the off-season.  
  
"So how come you like it here so much anyway, Ennis." Jack asked.  
  
Ennis liked to think on that question too sometimes.  Perhaps it reminded him of home, and why you sometimes had to leave home to find home.  Or at least it sure made you appreciate what you had.  Perhaps the natural rhythms of time and tide, the never-ending routine of the earth and her creatures, reminded him of something greater than himself, what it was that really mattered, not unlike Wyoming in that way, just different, and he liked to feel that difference and sameness of other places.  It was peaceful and comforting.

 

* * *

  
The hurricane had been downgraded and the weather report wasn’t forecasting anything more than a tropical storm now, that would run out of steam by the time it made its way up the coastline to New England shores.  He put on his windbreaker and headed out to the car with Jack.   They were able stop for lunch at the Surfside, then got a couple of hot coffees to go.

Sure enough, they could see the storm front coming in once they got there, a bank of fog rolling in from out on the horizon, the great whitecapped swells coming up from the Carolinas.   Ennis opened the car door and was met with a rush of misty sea air and the invigorating smell of saltwater, the wind gusts about 25 to 30 knots.   Not many were here but for a die-hard fisherman or two, packing up their fishing gear for home, a couple walking with their dogs, and a group of surfers getting into wetsuits to catch some rare big waves, their brightly colored boards still attached to the roofs of their vehicles, and the terns and gulls floating and calling on the warm air currents occasionally dropping down to the water's edge with the sanderlings to take advantage of the bounty of food washed ashore and presented to them by the waves churning up the sea floor.

They sipped their take-out coffees in the silence mostly, except for a friendly hello or two when they passed someone as they walked across the causeway to the island, enjoying the warmth of the coffee, with just the ever-constant sound of the waves pounding against the rocks and the beach stones being tumbled by them, and the distant bells of fog signals like an ancient Vedic hymn, bringing calm to the senses, and the occasional calls of the sea birds.   They got caught in a shower of seaspray as they crossed, Ennis' face flushed from being out in the wind, and the mist made his blond hair charmingly curl up around his face even more than usual.  They both laughed, and Jack reached over and brushed a damp wave out of Ennis' eyes with his fingers.

Ennis thought that if he had been a painter, he would have had no trouble imagining which brushes and brush strokes, which mixtures of yellow and Prussian blue, would create the perfect greens and grey-blue tones of the endless variations in color and light of the sky and sea.

 

* * *

 

They walked like that for an hour or so, and then Ennis put his arm around Jack’s shoulders, kissed his rough cheek, Jack's slight, dark five o-clock shadow a beautiful contrast against his fairer skin.  The mist turned into a gentle rain.

"Let’s go home." he whispered, and they turned and headed back to the car and to the guest house together.


End file.
